December 17th, 2267. 12:12 Vosture Prime – John’s Homestead

“Did you know about this group?” Elias asked in an accusatory tone.

John looked ahead at the screen and shook his head. His focus was less on the story and more on the local traffic. Whatever was creating that slip-wake was going to be here soon. The shuttle, carrying two of the team’s survivors, was circling an odd area, it was well away from civilian transport lanes. Whatever was coming to the system was likely to enter the system there.

“No, I didn’t. I know this means little, coming from the man who was tasked with killing your team, but I didn’t want that to happen.”

Elias was surprised by the statement, “Why?”

“If I fucked up and got too aggressive and you went underground, that’s on me. If some malcontents did the same, then my mission would have failed because of issues outside of my control. I was quite pissed off when I saw the news.”

“Your fear wasn’t loss of life but failure?”

“Well yes, of course, the loss of any citizen's life here is a tragic one, there wasn’t anything that I could do to stop that from happening. My orders were to eliminate any threats, foreign or domestic. In this case, a new threat appeared on my radar. Obviously, I knew where you were situated. So, I continued to monitor your building, but to my great surprise aside from a cautious few days it was business as usual,” John paused then looked over at Elias, “I get the feeling that wasn’t your decision, was it?”

“It was not. In fact, I was quite vocal that we needed to move to our tertiary location and go underground. But by then the ship, or ships as it wasn’t entirely clear, had already departed.”

“The bureaucracy wins yet again,” John responded sarcastically.

“Before that though, you said you knew nothing of that group.”

“Not any more than a very cursory skimming of the group’s summary prior to the explosion. Obviously, that changed rather quickly,” John grunted, “Naval Intelligence had collected dossiers of their members and where they lived, and where their club met.”

“You didn’t see the need to delve deeper because they weren’t categorized as a threat,” Elias correctly presumed John’s lack of knowledge regarding the group.

“The information was available to me, but again since they were categorized as low threat, I didn’t give them a second look. They were a known group that acted like sovereign citizens of old. Very annoying for sure. They had some extreme views of items, but they weren’t a danger to anyone.”

“Why did they start blowing things up?”

“Their leader got busted on a drug charge, which was admittedly trumped up by the police. That was done to get a search warrant on one of his properties. That was where they found a treasure trove of illegal guns and explosive materials.”

Elias shook his head, “So the police acted illegally to arrest him, and that resulted in my people dying.”

“The group went from a menace to themselves to a much greater concern. A concern I had to deal with personally,” John spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I know I read a report about what was found recently, but what did you do?”

“I became the Grim Reaper once again…”

Elias cocked his slightly and looked confused, “The grim reaper?”

September 17th, 2267. 05:15 John’s Homestead

John was lugging a tote over to the small elevator. Inside the tote was a pistol, a submachine gun, and a battle rifle along with dozens of loaded magazines. After dropping the contents off he turned and looked at the suit of power armor but knew that it was overkill for this mission. It would provide him with far more safety than a combat suit, but the cave system this group was supposedly hiding in may not be accessible in that suit.

John hit the button to send the elevator up before walking back to the armory and shutting several cages. The elevator quite loudly groaned as it lifted three totes worth of gear up to the main floor. He then shut a couple of lights off before walking over to the ladder and climbed up it slowly.

“Eve, where are we with the analysis of the Murphy Caves?”

“Still processing,” Eve replied over the speakers, “Based on the latest traffic data there were thirty vehicles that left the city to that general vicinity, but they have not returned to the city. All other vehicles that have come to that area have been accounted for.”

“Is that all members of this cell?”

“Naval Intelligence’s data on this group is several months old. Of the members that were known and to not have publicly sworn off the group it appears that everyone is there.”

John nodded, “Where is the lead asshole being kept?”

“The Sheridan Detention Center is located ten minutes north of the suburbs.”

John then walked into his office and pointed at one of the screens, “Display the map of the facility.”

Eve did as ordered and displayed the map onscreen. The prison appeared on the screen that had just activated. One two-lane road was the only access point to it. But it was surrounded by rocky terrain on two sides.

“What is the distance from that rocky outcrop to the prison yard?” John asked.

“One thousand eighty-seven meters. Well within range of the tactical bolt rifle you selected.”

John thought about it, the shot was possible. He had taken shots that long before, but he wasn’t by any stretch a superb sniper. It had been quite some time since he had taken any shots that distance. Thankfully the lack of practice could be offset by technology. The leader of this group needed to go, but perhaps today wasn’t the right day for it.

“Going to leave that there. I want you to search the records and find out when this asshole is in the yard. I also want intel on this facility to know if they use any kinetic shields or round-tracing systems. I need this man dead without me being an easy target for the police.”

“Understood, I will investigate that information for you,” Eve said before activating the second screen, “Please see the other screen. My review of the security footage is summarized thusly. It is my belief that all known members are in the cave at this time.”

“Good, with any luck I’ll be back by sundown.”

07:30 Murphy Cave System

John pulled his Raptor off the road and drove toward a grove of trees. The road the anarchist members took to the caves was less than a half mile away. That road itself was about the same length as the cave entrance.

He hopped out of the truck and walked to the end gate. He was wearing a black combat suit, sans any armor plates. That would have made the drive dreadfully uncomfortable. As the end gate slowly fell down it showed several totes and boxes. John pulled the one with the armor plates out and began dressing for war.

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First, the boots were put on, once his heel hit the soul of the boot they tightened around his foot and ankle. He lifted one of his feet and rolled his foot around to make sure there was no binding or total loss of movement. He repeated with his other leg, John nodded and then picked up the shin and knee plates, they magnetically locked into place to the combat suit.

Five minutes later John was fiddling with the final armor plate. It was a highly modified back plate that contained an oversized micro-fusion reactor and two expansion slots. One the first slot was a moderately modified kinetic shielding array, which should give John sufficient small arms protection for such an encounter.

The second expansion slot was a highly modified and barely working stealth field. In the morning daylight, it’d do little in an open space, but in the shade or in a cave it likely would be good enough to hide him. Or so was the hope, John’s real worry with that slot was the module simply burning up because of his modifications. He had learned a great deal from Kevin and his main engineers, but one thing he instantly learned was his complete lack of aptitude for being an engineer.

Eventually, the armor plates for the combat suit were all in place. While they wouldn’t afford him the complete protection that the suit of power armor would, it should render him mostly immune to any small-arm fire. Though mostly immune was not the same as being impervious to that. Care needed to be taken to avoid being killed.

John then picked up the tote and set it back in the bed of the truck. Out of the other tub, he began loading magazines into the various pouches he had on his hips and chest. A heavy caliber pistol, with an attached suppressor, was attached magnetically to his right hip plate.

Next up was his battle rifle. Effectively a man-sized version of the one he rolled with in his power armor. It was also an appropriately man-sized caliber that wouldn’t shred his shoulder’s bones and muscles to nothingness after firing. John slid the sling over his head and sized it appropriately. When he was satisfied with that, he picked up the spare pistol and magnetized that to his left hip plate.

He was shaking his head as he attached the suppressor to the rifle. He then pointed the rifle down and let it dangle towards the ground as he picked up his helmet. The HUD showed it was syncing up to all three weapons as he grabbed the last magazine sitting on the tailgate.

John loaded the fifty-round magazine into the rifle and pulled the gun into his shoulder. The HUD was then pointing where he was aiming. A quick calibration later and John was on the move toward the cave. As he did the distinctive electrical crackling occurred as he disappeared from sight.

Of course, he was still there. The optical camouflage worked well, but a keen-eyed individual would be able to detect him. As would a thermal scanner or scope. It was a gamble, but John didn’t expect this group to have those scanners in their compound.

“Three individuals detected ahead,” Eve said in her pleasant monotone voice.

John slowed his pace down slightly and crept behind a rocky outcropping. One individual was no more than twenty paces away. Two others were sitting in chairs tending a campfire. John flicked the safety off on his rifle and set it to semi-automatic fire.

The closer individual walked around the far side of the outcropping. John slowly let the battle rifle dangle downward as he reached for his suppressed pistol. The anarchist got within ten steps of John when he stopped.

“Wha…”

The man wasn’t able to finish his statement. A single sub-sonic nine-millimeter round was fired. The two individuals by the fire didn’t hear that. Nor did they hear the bullet striking the man’s face just underneath his left eye. They did, however, hear their compatriot crumble to the ground.

“Brian, what’s going on?” one of them said.

John slowly locked the pistol to his right hip and pulled up his rifle into a ready position. He slowly walked around the rocky outcropping towards a large oak-like tree.

“Brian,” the other man said, “What the fuck are you doing?”

The second man got up and began to walk over towards the rocks. John lined up a shot on the man by the fire and pulled the trigger. He saw a pink mist in his visor and quickly pulled the rifle to his left towards the second man. They stopped and looked confused. That confusion would be the last thing they thought before feeling a thirty-caliber round pierce both lungs and his heart.

“Three down,” John said as he witnessed the man fall to the ground gasping for breath.

John slowly walked towards the cave entrance. He knelt down next to a tree thirty paces from the entrance. A window in his HUD zoomed into the entrance. It flashed between different visions but no one else was detected.

“Well shit,” John said, “Go in cloaked or go in with shields?”

He waited for a moment before making a decision. The stealth field remained active as he moved purposefully toward the cavern’s entrance. A pair of small drones ejected from his back plate and flew into the cave.

A map of the cave was beginning to form and be displayed in his HUD. Thankfully for him, this was far from a complex system. It wasn’t very deep either, but it did have several large, connected chambers. The downside to that was the moment he fired the first shot, even suppressed, it would alert everyone to what was happening.

John paused and went to a knee as he was a dozen steps into the cave. Understanding that it was a near impossibility to keep hidden, he unscrewed his battle rifle’s suppressor and stowed that in a pouch on his chest. He also ordered Eve to immediately drop the stealth field the moment he fired the first shot. Loud and noisy was the order of the day.

Once he had made his mind up John began slowly walking deeper into the cave. His suit’s sensors were able to pick up voices coming from the first chamber. Four distinct voices could be heard along with what the software presumed were two or three individuals sleeping.

“What’s the death toll at?” one of the anarchists asked.

“Increased to forty-five. Jesus fucking Christ, Tim did a god damned number with that one.”

A third anarchist then responded, “That bomb wasn’t supposed to go off there at all, it was meant to go off in the bus depot.”

“The bomb had a timer as a backup, but his contact switch didn’t work,” the first voice said, “What do you think is going to happen?”

A new, and much older, voice joined the conversation, “At a minimum, we will be charged as accessories. Some may escape the charges but most of you won’t.”

“Old man, you don’t…” the second voice began to speak.

“The original members told you not to do this. Now look at us, stuck living like the apes of old Earth. Wonderful job you’ve done for us,” the old man looked in disgust at the younger members.

Were it any other situation, John would’ve used that tidbit of information to his advantage. As this was a mission to annihilate this group it mattered little if there were people that disagreed with the events that had taken place. He couldn’t risk this group escalating the situation any further.

John pulled a flashbang grenade from his grenade bandolier on his chest. The safety pin was removed as it slid out of the bandolier. The striker lever remained depressed until John’s arm chucked the device down the hallway and into the room.

“What was…”

One of the guards was able to say part of a sentence before the grenade exploded. The flashbang did its job. The bright light, noise, and shockwave from the detonation stunned and disoriented everyone in the room. No one saw the human embodiment of death run into the room and began doing what he did so well.

John’s battle rifle was tucked into his shoulder tightly, and in semi-automatic firing mode one round after another was fired off. John’s finger moved methodically pressing against the trigger smoothly. His breathing was in sync with his firing, a rare thing given the amount of adrenaline that was not flooding his system.

He was at war once again. In the span of sixteen seconds, eight members of the anarchist group lay dead or dying in the first cavern. None in that room appeared to have any fight left in them. John surveyed the room, then pointed his gun at one of the members, the older gentleman who attempted to give a verbal lashing to his juniors, was trying to stand up.

John raised up his rifle once more and aimed at the man. One more thirty-caliber armor-piercing round was fired. It was fired true and ripped through the man’s torso. His movement came to a halt.

“Twenty-six more individuals, they are approaching from both halls,” Eve said to snap John out of his singular focus on this room.

John pulled another flash bang and tossed it down the cave he had come from. He flicked the safety into burst fire and stepped back to get some cover. The gun was aimed down the cave that connected to the smaller chamber.

A gaggle of individuals were running down the cave just as the flashbang went off in the adjacent cave. The leader of the men was staring into the room and didn’t notice the armored man kneeling down behind a bunk. The woman next to him did see but noticed too late to do anything about it.

Three loud bangs went off. Then another three. Brass could be heard banging off the rock walls and wood bunks. More loud bangs were fired off.

The armor-piercing rounds shredded the impotent and utterly useless armor the anarchists wore. Each round easily pierced the first individual they struck and made easy work of piercing the people behind them. Eighteen rounds, only six pulls of the trigger, were all that was necessary to eliminate the first group of reinforcements.

John then flicked the safety into full auto and pointed down the other hall. He pulled the trigger back and kept it pulled back. A fusillade of fire was sent down through the cave. The stunned men and women who were rushing to their compatriot’s aid were cut down mercilessly. Then the firing stopped with a final bang, the magazine was empty.

He pressed the magazine release and twisted the rifle quickly to send the empty magazine flying. John pulled another fifty-round magazine from a pouch out and slammed it hard into the rifle. His thumb pressed the bolt lock button which made the gun hot once more loading another round into the chamber.

“Twelve more individuals remain. They are taking up position in the final chamber,” Eve said.

John dashed out of his cover and headed down the cavern. He stepped on several dead bodies, with the last one almost causing him to fall. All the while the rifle was pointed down the cave, if he were to fall, he would still be able to react to any hostiles.

The second chamber, the smallest of the three, looked to be a storage room of sorts. John quickly cleared the room and put his back up against the flat wall next to the cave that led to the final chamber. He had two flashbangs left, well, one left after the one he pulled.

He was about to chuck it down into the hall when a voice screamed out from the room, “WHO IS IT?”

John switched on the external speakers to his helmet and spoke in the most grizzled tone he could muster, “The Grim Reaper.”